Reaction Roundup: can the PlayBook software upgrade keep RIM in the tablet game?

With the PlayBook’s Hail Mary software upgrade now out the door, Research In Motion can only wait and hope it’s enough to save its much-maligned tablet. Judging by RIM’s stock performance after the release—the price rose in the morning, but ended the day slightly down, only to fall further yesterday—investors don’t seem ready to call it a winner. Tech and finance pundits also wavered, praising the new email and calendar apps, but slamming the lack of a BlackBerry Messenger app (are you listening, RIM? This is why people still love their Blackberries!). A roundup of what they’re all saying, after the jump.

1. Everyone still can’t believe RIM’s first attempt was so bad.Nearly a year later, reviewers still can’t figure out why the PlayBook didn’t have native email when it first launched. Neither can we, especially since BlackBerry’s proprietary email system is what made the company famous in the first place.

2. The email, calendar and contacts are pretty damn good.RIM is making up for earlier mistakes (see number one) with slick email, calendar and contacts apps. “Calendar revealed itself to be a well-designed, hyper-functional app that also incorporated my Google and Facebook schedules. I think I like this better than the iOS Calendar app,” wrote Gizmodo’s Adrian Covert.

3. Not including BlackBerry Messenger is a huge mistakeConsidering how much BlackBerry users love their BBM, RIM blundered by not including it in this update. The folks at business news giant Forbescalled the omission “a huge gaping hole” in the software that “needs to be addressed as soon as possible.” BBM’s value to enterprise customers accounts for close to 30 per cent of Forbes’ $16.50 price estimate for RIM stock.

4. Making Android apps available is a great idea, but poorly executed.“The Android app compatibility is nice, but I don’t think it will be as seamless as it needs to be for real success,” Kevin Dede of Brigantine Advisors told the Toronto Star. Gizmodo’s Covert was less diplomatic about his struggle to locate Android apps in the BlackBerry app store: “As far as BlackBerry App World goes, it’s mostly full of garbage apps, so it’s only appropriate that the experience of navigating through it is also garbage.”

5. The upgrade is good, but it should have been revolutionary.While the new features are neat, “the changes all represent minor improvements to a tablet that needed to take massive steps forward,” wrote Roger Cheng over at CNET.com. With competition from the iPad, Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s Nook tablet, Cheng argues this upgrade just isn’t enough to revive the PlayBook.

9 thoughts on “Reaction Roundup: can the PlayBook software upgrade keep RIM in the tablet game?”

Feb 2012: TEN months later they release OS2.0 and it doesn’t have BBM nor secure mail (BES)
-FAIL again!
Those guys are sleeping at the wheel! at $150 its barely worth it, at $99 they will get rif of the ramaining stock, but they will keep being the punching bag of the sector.

What RIM needs to do is:
“Get as many RIM products in as many hands as possible to keep them in the RIM ecosystem until they release BB10 in Q3”

Forget about marketing and don’t spend a single cent more in OS5; OS6 and OS7; Reduce ALL the Blackberries globally by $100-150 and get them to the prepaid market and you will have a ctitical mass of users that will jump to OS10 in October when they release it. Put the Playbook at $99 get rid of them all and put the experience in the past.
Forget about $300 million in Marketing, just put it to cover the losses of the discounts.

The playbook OS2 hands down beats my ipad2. The playbook is IMO the best tablet on the market. apple still has the best phone. This article seems very biased and not accurate. My playbook does alot more then the ipad and its sad when the media can not report the facts any longer.

I don’t understand the apps store thing: since when, good Lord, do we need “300.000” apps available, and how on earth having so many apps available is a winning factor? Do we have enough time in a normal day (which includes at least 9hrs spent at work, and, say 6-8hrs sleeping, plus other times to eat, being with family and friends….etc) to play that many games?

A tablet is a tablet, not a laptop. I use it when outside the office for a short period to get my mails and having my contact and calender handy without having to carry the laptop, or early on the morning to check arriving mails and appointments of the day. Why pay an Ipad or a Playbook (initial price) at 500$? 200$ for a Playbook is a must not miss deal.

The OS 2.0 upgrade is a great addition to the Playbook. The very fast browser that supports Adobe Flash-player websites is a first class act. They got it right with the integration of the Email, Contacts and Calendar applications.

The Playbook is a very functional mobile tablet with great performance. If their BB 10 phones are as good, RIM will most certainly bounce back.

Measuring success of a tablet upgrade by watching the stock price is unbelievably poor way of researching the quality of the upgrade. Writers should do a little leg work and talk to the people using the upgrade to get a feeling for how good it is.

Yes RIM missed native email on PB OS1 but they got it right on OS2. The hardware and software work flawlessly and to-date superior to both Apple and the slew of Android products.
Good work RIM and looking forward to BB10.

Love the upgrade – calendar email and contacts are great. There are lots of android apps out there too – rim made playing them so seamless that you can’t really tell which ones are android and which ones are playbook.

After TRYing to use the iPad that I bought for my parntes for a work trip, I cannot wait for the Blackberry Playbook. My thoughtsbabout the iPad’s joys and inconveniences all see to be taken into account! The size seems perfect ( iPad is about two inches too big) and the schmaltzy iPad marketing is driving my crazy. I love being able to use the web bigger and to port my work around in a bigger format to share and project. Some apps just shine in a bigger format. But the Apple limits on flash and the near impossibility of showing my PowerPoint from it (and the lack of notes in Keynote) made this a barely useful machine. Bring on the BB tablet quick!